Richland Election Commission Board Has Power to Fire Director

Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The Richland County Election Commission board wasf formall told Thursday that they have the power to fire Lillian McBride; the Executive Director of the Election Commission.

"We do know in the broad brush that we had long lines, not enough machines out, we had communication issues in regards to communications issue with various documents, those are known," said Richland County Election Commission Board Attorney, Steve Hamm.

But what's still unclear is who should take responsibility for the fiasco at the polls.

"We went into executive session for legal advice regarding the attorney general's opinion written to John L. Scott," said Chairwoman Liz Crum.

Senator Scott's question to the attorney general was who had the authority to fire, Richland County Election Commission Executive Director Lillian McBride.

The attorney general said that the election commission board has the power to fire the executive director and thursday the board acknowledged that power.

"I think the board agrees that they accept the rational and opinion of the attorney general and when they need to make decisions on the director that is the authority that they will apply," said Hamm.

A lot of questions still remain unanswered; like why there were 200 fewer machines than what was supposed to be in place for the general election.

Commission attorney, Steve Hamm says it's going to take some time to get to the bottom of this mess.

"Right now I am looking very carefully at the voting data, precinct data, data that shows what time a machine broke down."

Hamm says he will try to get the board a preliminary report answering some of those questions by next week.

With the power to fire McBride now in the boards hands, Chairwoman Liz Crum says they have not set a timeline on when they may consider that option.

"We are not setting a deadline, we are going to go through the investigative process, this is the United States, and we need to go through a full and thorough investigation before we make any determination.

When asked has she made her decision whether to vote to fire McBride, Crum told News 19 she has not made a decision yet.

Attorney Steve Hamm hopes to submit and preliminary report on what when wrong on Election Day by Wednesday, December 5th.